The Regulatory Cliff Is Nearly as Steep as the Fiscal One

The president has postponed damaging rules until after the November election.

After three years of bureaucratic excess, the Obama administration has been quietly postponing several multibillion-dollar regulations until after the November election. Those delayed rules, together with more than 130 unfinished mandates under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial law, could significantly increase the regulatory drag on our economy in 2013.

The Labor Department, for example, is working on a regulation that would increase the cost of retirement planning for middle-class workers, to "protect" them from investment help... A study last year by the Oliver Wyman Group found that the Fiduciary Rule could result in higher retirement account minimums and cause 7.2 million individual retirement account (IRA) holders to lose access to investment advice...

...Then there is the mega-rule on the shelf at the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) that could block business expansion in many areas of the country. Proposed in 2010, the Ozone Rule would impose a limit on ozone (which creates haze from emissions from cars, power plants and factories) so strict that up to 85% of U.S. counties monitored by the EPA would be in violation.

Portman notes a 2011 Gallup survey in which small business owners listed overregulation as the "most important problem" facing them.

There's only one way to flush the left-wing regulatory state out of the cesspool that is Washington. Vote the straight Republican ticket. It's the only way to be sure.